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Inside-the-park home run

In baseball parlance, an inside-the-park home run or "leg home run" is a play where a hitter scores a home run without hitting the ball out of play.

Discussion

To score an inside-the-park home run the player must run, round, and touch all four bases before a fielder tags him out, the same as he would do for a double or triple. The play often occurs due to a fielding mishap by the defense or a strange bounce in the outfield. If the fielder commits an error during the act, however, the play is not scored as a home run, but rather advancing on an error. The classic situation occurs when two outfielders collide on their way toward receiving a ball hit to the warning track; the missed ball then bounces first off the track and then low off the fence high and far away from the outfielders. Another situation occurs when the ball tips off the glove of a diving fielder away from the other fielder.

Statistics

Of the 154,483 home runs hit from 1951 - 2000, 975 (about one in every 158) were inside the park. The percentage has dwindled over the years with the growing propensity toward power hitting and smaller parks.

Rare occurrences

Roberto Clemente, one of the greatest outfielders in Baseball history, is also the only player in baseball history to have hit a game-winning inside-the-park grand slam.

Jimmy Sheckard completed a phenomenal feat in 1901, hitting inside-the-park grand slams in consecutive games on consecutive days with the Brooklyn Superbas (later the Brooklyn Dodgers). Sheckard is the only person in Major League Baseball history to do so.

Rookie catcher Geovany Soto of the Chicago Cubs was credited with an inside-the-park home run against the Houston Astros on May 19, 2008, though replays showed the ball should have been called an automatic home run.

Inside-the-park grand slams

An inside-the-park grand slam is the same event but, like a grand slam, features the bases loaded for an inside-the-park home run. There have been 40 inside-the-park grand slams in Major League Baseball since 1950 and only eight since 1990 (as of 2007). Honus Wagner had the most in MLB history with five.